


I Linger On, Dear

by rhink_is_my_kink



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Deepthroating, Dream Sex, Feelings Realization, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mutual Pining, Somnophilia, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhink_is_my_kink/pseuds/rhink_is_my_kink
Summary: Sharing hotel rooms while on tour, Link dreams of Rhett, only to discover Rhett is dreaming about him.Link can't find it in him to stop, guilt be damned.
Relationships: Christy Neal/Link Neal, Jessie McLaughlin/Rhett McLaughlin, Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 14
Kudos: 77





	I Linger On, Dear

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags, please.

“God, Link, yeah,” Rhett’s words come from two places at once.

Link is dreaming. He’s dreaming of Rhett, like he has a thousand times before. Rhett’s on his knees, pretty pink lips sliding over Link’s thick, spit-slick cock. Rhett’s jade eyes are turned up to Link as he works Link’s dick down his throat, tears prickling at the corners of his bright eyes. He pulls Rhett off his cock and manhandles him over the first flat surface they come to, tugs Rhett’s pants down around his thighs, hawks a wad of spit into his palm that he slicks over his dick, and works himself slowly into the tight heat of Rhett’s ass.

“Fuck yeah, Link, like that,” It echoes through his head again, a symphony of combined voices, both are as familiar to Link as the back of his own teeth. 

Reluctantly, Link begins to pull away from his dream, out of _his_ Rhett, away from everything he wants, even though it’s wrong. 

It’s a good thing they’re in the soft, safe quiet of a hotel room, because he can’t separate himself from his dream for a handful of seconds. Rhett’s smell still fills his senses. And Link’s achingly fucking hard. He could get out of bed, head down to the hotel bar, and try to forget how Rhett’s lips look when they’re stretched around his cock, but it would be would be embarrassing to have to traipse through the hotel with his cockhead pressed up against his belly button by the elastic waist of his boxer briefs. 

“Jesus, Link,” Rhett moans next to him, “Like that. Don’t stop.”

Link cranes around to ask Rhett what the ever-loving fuck he’s talking about, but the words die in his throat.

Rhett is on his stomach, pillow wadded up against one cheek, fast asleep, dry humping the mattress. He’s making little happy noises that make Link’s cock weep with joy. 

It also explains the deep-voiced echo that permeated Link’s dream.

Link opens and closes his mouth a few times, internally struggling with waking up his best friend and fucking him into the mattress or walking out into the parking lot and setting himself on fire because he’s definitely, _definitely_ going to hell for this.

In the end, he does neither. He rolls onto his side to watch Rhett. The way the muscles in his back ripple with each dry thrust against the sheets. He saves every whimper, moan, and each filthy syllable—records it indelibly in his brain so he can replay it again and again. 

He slips a hand down the front of his shorts and grips his dick in a tight fist. He times each stroke over his shaft with the up and down motion of Rhett’s hips. He bites his lip so hard he can taste the copper tang of his own blood in his mouth. If he didn’t, he’s not sure he could stop from calling Rhett’s name, he won’t risk waking his best friend up. Not now.

Rhett’s breath hitches, and his hips stutter. One last long groan of ecstasy from Rhett, and the salt tangy scent of come fills the air, pushing Link over the edge, he spills over his closed fist with a quiet grunt. 

Rhett’s eyes twitch and Link is up and out of their shared bed like a bolt of lightning. He beelines for the shower, where he turns the water up painfully hot and scrubs his skin with the fragrant bar of hotel soap until every inch of him is pink and new, and there’s no trace of his _stupendously_ bad judgment left there.

“Never again,” he whispers decisively to the scuffed bathroom tiles, “Never. Again.”

* * *

It happens thirty-two more times in the next three months. 

Link still wakes to be confronted with a sleepy version of his dreams. Rhett still calls out Link’s name when he comes. Link still swears that they’ve got to stop sharing a hotel room on tour, except this one last time. The guilt still eats Link alive. 

Link counts his lucky stars that their wives don’t come on tours with them. If they did, there would be no reason for Rhett to be next to him in bed, and Link wouldn’t have this at all. And even though it made him feel like shit—like the worst person on the planet—he was loathe to give it up. He couldn’t. Not now that he knew what kinds of sounds Rhett made during his orgasms, or the way Rhett’s come smelled in the air between them once he was sated and spent. 

If Jessie heard Rhett’s huffed breaths in the middle of the night, heard his rough voice begging for his best friend’s dick, it would most likely end both of their marriages in one fell swoop. 

Link hadn’t dreamt about Rhett in months—not since the first time he woke from his own pornographic dream to find his best friend fucking the bed no more than six inches away from him. He didn’t need dream Rhett, when he had a real life wet dream panting and begging and coming right fucking next to him.

If he weren’t going to hell after that first time, the sixth time was really going to be the nail in his coffin. That was the time where he finally reached a shaking hand across the distance between the two of them and stroked a slim finger over the globe of his best friend’s ass.

The eighteenth time is when Link slips an index finger into Rhett’s mouth and when his best friend’s sweet little lips seal around the digit and start sucking and tonguing at it, Link comes so hard he almost blacks out.

Ah, but so many nails in so many coffins that each of his body parts could have their own separate funeral.

The thirty-third time it happens, it changes everything.

* * *

Link was so keyed up by the swampy Louisiana humidity he couldn’t sleep that night, even with the drone of the air conditioner humming away, doing its best to dry the soaked air out a little. He just lies there, next to his gently snoring best friend, sulking up at the ceiling. 

After the first soft sound of arousal trickles out of Rhett’s mouth, Link rolls over to face his best friend. 

Rhett’s face is dazzling in the fall of moonlight that pushes in past the thin curtains. He’s on his side too, facing Link. His curly hair fans out over the pillow like a halo. His jaw is slack, cheeks hollow, eyes fluttering under lids made pale by the moon. His bare chest is dewy with sweat, his nipples pebbled into hard peaks. Link can see the shadow of Rhett’s hard cock tenting his boxers, a faint wet spot on the front where he’s leaking precome.

He’s so fucking beautiful it makes Link’s chest ache.

Link rubs over his own cock, through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs. His brows knit together, as the too-familiar feeling of guilt washed over him. He shouldn’t want what he wants, but he’s helpless against the way he feels. He’s loved this man nearly his whole life. He should want to protect his best friend, he should want to preserve their marriages. 

So why did it feel like someone had ripped his chest open and carved out a hole inside of him, full of jagged bone and raw meat, the exact shape of his best friend?

“Rhett,” he sighs, no louder than the whisper of an exhale, but Rhett stirs. 

Link’s so heartsick right now that he can’t move. He just breathes heavy through his nose, and squeezes his eyes shut against the burn of tears. 

He doesn’t see Rhett’s eyes flutter open.

“Link?” Rhett says in a low voice. 

Link’s hand is still on his dick, and he’s quietly mortified when it blurts out precome against his hand when Rhett murmurs his name.

“Yeah?” he asks in a strained voice, feeling like shit had suddenly gone off the rails in a big way. He raises the hand that isn’t on his dick to the bridge of his nose and squeezes it hard to combat the way his eyes are burning.

Rhett’s hands tug gently at his forearm until he releases his nose. Link’s eyes are still closed though, and he jumps when Rhett’s lithe fingers brush over the stubble on his cheeks.

“Hey,” Rhett says softly, “Link. Please look at me. Open your eyes.” Fingertips feather softly over his eyelids, gently coaxing them open. Rhett’s angelic face is inches from his own. For the first time in as far back as Link’s memory goes, he has no idea the meaning of the expression written on his best friend’s features.

It’s everything he can do to not pull Rhett in for a kiss. 

He clears his throat twice before he’s able to answer, “What do you want, Rhett?”

“I just… ummm…” Rhett stammers.

“Spit it out,” Link says flatly, impatient to get away from this disconcerting situation, and into the shower where he can jerk off in peace. Or maybe die in peace. It was a toss-up at this point.

Rhett scoots closer to him. And Rhett’s hard, wet dick presses against the back of Link’s hand, which is still cupped over his own cock.

“Jesus, Rhett,” Link was aiming for annoyed, but it comes out pregnant with need. 

“Want you, Link,” Rhett says quietly, “Please. Want you to fuck me.”

Link is too far gone in love with Rhett to second guess himself or worry about hell, or their wives, or how this could ruin everything. Rhett had said the words that have been running through Link’s every waking thought for months, and Link is so fucking _done_ with fighting.

He rolls over, so Rhett is underneath him, both still wearing boxer briefs, their cocks slot against each other, hot through the wet, clinging fabric. Link pins Rhett’s hands against the mattress and drops down to kiss him. 

It’s sloppy, and imperfect, but it’s so fucking good that Link’s got stars dancing behind his eyelids. He realizes two things at once. One: he’s dizzy because he’s so excited he (embarrassingly) forgot to breathe. Two: Rhett is making little happy noises and humping against him this time (instead of the bed!), and it’s rubbing their dicks together so sweet Link’s dying to nut right now. 

He doesn’t though. He doesn’t know how this happened, or why, but when someone gifts you a horse, you don’t go checking its teeth.

They both break the kiss, breathless and heady. Rhett’s breath ghosts over his cheek when he whispers, “Will you, Link? Will you fuck me?” Link hears Rhett’s throat click as he swallows.

Link never could say no to Rhett. This was no different. He nods against Rhett’s neck.

“Yeah,” he whispers. This particular coffin nail is stuck in his throat, making it hard to breathe. He knows he should stop, but he wants it so bad, so selfishly, he decides it’s worth it, even if it implodes his entire existence.

His fingers tangle in Rhett’s curls when he pushes their mouths together. Their tongues map out the inside of the other’s mouth. A familiar action made foreign for each of them by the hard press of a cock against their own. 

“I wanna taste you, bo,” Link whispers, sliding down Rhett’s lean form.

Rhett’s curse is shaped into a moan when Link’s tongue wraps around the head of his dick, and slides hot and wet down his shaft. There’s no hesitation from Link. When he has Rhett at the back of his throat, he pushes stubbornly past his gag reflex, until his nose is buried in the auburn nest of pubic hair that dusts Rhett’s groin.

It’s a shocking sensation, to be this deep inside of Link, but it feels so good, Rhett is worried he’s going to come too soon. So he twists a hand in Link’s hair, and pulls it tight, slowly drawing the hot mouth off of his legnth, so he can fuck back in, keeping a slower pace that ensures he isn’t going to blow his load like some over-eager teenager. Link’s moaning and gasping Rhett’s name anytime he’s able to form his lips around words instead of dick. 

Link swipes a finger through the drool that trails over Rhett’s taint, slides farther back and wiggles a finger into his tight hole. Rhett wails his name, and releases Link’s hair in favor of fisting the sheets in each hand. His hips make tight little thrusts that bury him in Link’s throat, and push Link deeper inside of his ass.

It doesn’t take long before he’s stretched open by three of Link’s dexterous fingers, and he’s begging to be fucked. They use Rhett’s hand lotion as improvised lube, and it works, even though Link’s cock stretches him so much more than his fingers did. 

By the time Link bottoms out, they’re both a mess. The room is silent, except for their ragged breathing, and the rhythmic skin-on-skin sounds of a really good fuck.

Until, “Feels so good, Link. I’m gonna— _fuck_. I wanna come.” Rhett’s voice is low and wrecked.

Link gets his hand around Rhett’s cock, and his back bows up off the mattress, Link’s name tearing it’s way out of his throat, and he comes in his best friend’s tight fist, a hot flood of come spilling out over Link’s bony knuckles.

Hearing Rhett orgasm in his sleep was nothing compared to having it happen live and in living color, squeezing around his aching dick with the force of it. Having his dream made manifest, Link comes buried deep inside of Rhett. A guttural groan wrenched from both of them when the slick slide goes hot and wet, squelching around Link’s last few short, sloppy thrusts.

They fall asleep in each other’s arms, sticky and sweaty, boneless with exhaustion.

* * *

Link is awake at 3:30 in the morning. Sobbing quietly in the dark. Crying over the friendship he’s sure to have ruined. Weeping over the marriages he’s effectively nuked. Carved out, raw, and full of shame, he’s two minutes away from leaving with nothing in hands but his wallet and keys. He can’t see a way out of this, so he’s prepared to pack his misery up and run away with it in defeat.

A sleep-rough voice startles him. “They already know.”

He’s ashamed of how gutted he sounds when he sniffles, “What?”

“They already know. Jessie. And Christy. They know.”

“Know what?”

“Buddy roll, I’ve been a… vocal sleeper… most of my life. Three years ago I started dreaming… Well, I started dreaming about you. Jessie asked me about it the very first night it happened. She thought we already were… you know. She said she’d already made her peace with it, because you and I, honestly, we’ve always been a package deal.”

“She didn’t care?”

“She said she didn’t, but I think she did. At first anyway. Thinking something is one thing. Having it confirmed is another. I know you and I weren’t actually together then, but it’s when I first realized I wanted to be. But she told me she talked to Christy about it way back after y’all got married, and before our wedding. I guess they both just assumed, and made up their mind to not bring it up unless we did.”

Link sits up, mopping at his face with a fist. “Bullshit. Why would they go all this time and not say anything?”

A whisper of sheets when Rhett shrugs. “You got me, brother. I guess it’s something we’re all gonna have to talk about at some point. But, Jessie told me it isn’t cheating because they already knew. Before it even really happened for real.”

“I’m sorry, Rhett.”

“I know you are, but you don’t need to be. You shouldn’t be. We’ve loved each other for just about our whole lives. This is just another part of that for us, I guess.”

“I guess there’s a lot to talk about when we get home.”

“Yeah. Definitely. But I know it’s all gonna be okay.”

“So what now?” Link’s voice trembles, another wave of tears waiting on the horizon.

“For now, Neal, we sleep.” He pulls Link against his chest, and molds himself to the shape of the man in his arms. They both fall into a sleep which is deep, blissful, and dreamless.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. We die like men and all.
> 
> Title is from the song "Dream a Little Dream of Me."


End file.
